Academic and writer, specialist in contemporary French literature, Mireille Calle-Gruber is on the initiative of the reissue of Cheater and The tightrope. She is the author (Seuil, 2011), of Claude Simon, a life to write.
In your biography of Claude Simon, you write that “Respecting your re -edition is just just”. What made you change your mind?
When, in the biography, I come to the conclusion that Claude Simon’s refusal must be respected to reissue his first books, it was after having mentioned in detail his position which was nuanced, and in particular the alternative by him envisaged authorizing the reissue of his first novels under certain conditions. I recall this alternative in the presentation of the current volume. Claude Simon did not want his first works to be reissued separately. He accepted the reissue provided that these books were integrated into the continuation of subsequent works so that, as well as replaced In the process of writing in the making, they show the reader the evolution of recurring patterns in terms of the work of the form he made so much.
Thus in 1994, I developed with Claude Simon the project of an edition of his Complete works in Pleiade in two volumes, the first of which included all his novels since The cheater up to Palace – Or at least, he said, until The Route des Flanders
